Ex-Anonymous hacker questions North Korea's role in Sony hack

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32. What is the official version?

The Hollywood Reporter had an early version of this that still seems to be the most credible and plausible..

Sony Hack: Studio Security Points to Inside Job

Now the question of who is behind the attack has become a chilling Hollywood whodunit. While the hackers have identified themselves only as Guardians of Peace, emails pointing journalists to allegedly stolen files posted on a site called Pastebin came from a sender named "Nicole Basile." A woman by that name is credited on IMDb as an accountant on the studio's 2012 hit film The Amazing Spider-Man, and her LinkedIn page says she worked at Sony for one year in 2011. Basile couldn't be reached for comment and the studio declined to confirm if she works or has worked there.

Initial speculation swirled around a state-sponsored attack perpetrated by the North Korean government or its allies in retaliation for Sony's upcoming comedy The Interview, in which James Franco and Seth Rogen play journalists drafted by the CIA to assassinate North Korea leader Kim Jong Un. North Korean officials have condemned the movie, calling it "an act of war." But as the story of the cyberattack has grown, North Korea has been coy about its possible involvement. Asked by the BBC whether the government was involved in the attack, a spokesman said only, "Wait and see."

Inside the studio, though, sources say there is little evidence that North Korea is behind the attack. Cybersecurity expert Hemanshu Nigam also finds it hard to believe that North Korea is the perpetrator. Instead, he theorizes an employee or ex-employee with administrative access privileges is a more likely suspect. For the studio — which has laid off hundreds of employees over the past year in an effort to contain costs — the possibility of a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc is very real.

"If terabytes of data left the Sony networks, their network detection systems would have noticed easily," explains Nigam. "It would also take months for a hacker to figure out the topography of the Sony networks to know where critical assets are stored and to have access to the decryption keys needed to open up the screeners that have been leaked." In addition, he says, "Hackers don't use such things as Hushmail, Dropbox and Facebook when they want to engage in what amounts to criminal activity. Real hackers know that these sites collect access logs, IP addresses and work with law enforcement. It is possible that North Korean-sponsored hackers were working with someone on the inside. But it is more likely a ruse to shift blame, knowing the distaste the North Korean regime has for Sony Pictures." ...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-studio-security-points-753509

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